Research a topic and turn it into a doc
Search the public web and capture the findings as a structured document.
Intermediate · ~15 min · Prerequisites: None
What you'll do
Ask the assistant to research a topic on the public web, review the sources it cites, and then have it draft the findings directly into a new document in your workspace.
Ask the assistant to research
Start in Assistant and describe what you want to know. The more context you give — purpose, audience, depth — the more useful the output:
"Research the latest thinking on asynchronous-first team communication: key principles, common pitfalls, and real-world examples from companies with distributed teams."
The assistant runs a series of web searches, reads the most relevant pages, and synthesizes the findings. This usually takes 15–30 seconds. You'll see the search steps as they happen.
Review the sources
Once the assistant responds, it lists the sources it used — each one links to the original article or page. Before you do anything with the research, skim the citations:
- Check that sources are recent (ask "are any of these older than two years?" if you're unsure).
- Open a link that looks thin or off-topic and ask the assistant to drop it from the summary.
- Ask for more depth on one area: "Expand on the async communication tools section with three more examples."
The assistant can re-research or supplement at any point in the conversation, so treat this as an iterative loop rather than a one-shot ask.
Save it as a document
When the research looks solid, ask the assistant to draft it as a document:
"Turn this research into a structured document with an executive summary, key findings, and a recommendations section. Save it to My content."
The assistant creates a new document in Your content, opens the doc-coop panel, and writes the content with the pulse highlight as each section lands. The document is editable immediately.
You can also create the doc first and then ask the assistant to fill it in. Open Your content → New, click Ask assistant, and paste your research question. The assistant drafts directly into the open document. See Edit a document with "Ask assistant" for the in-doc flow.
Refine
Once the draft lands, you're in a normal co-writing session. Common refinements:
- "Add a TLDR at the top."
- "Restructure this as a listicle — one finding per header."
- "Shorten the recommendations section by half."
- "Add citations as footnotes."
Use Undo agent edit in the panel header if a rewrite misses the mark — it rolls back the last edit without losing the earlier draft. See Undo what the assistant changed for the full undo flow.